I don't have an actual craft room. I have been promised one but it will be a long time coming. The dining room table will have to do in the mean time. I hope to share some of things that I make with you and a little bit of chat.

Followers

Monday, 30 June 2014

I hope you had a good weekend. I was able to go to the local Sincerely Yours Papercraft show in Portsmouth. The icing on the cake was that I won £50 in vouchers to spend at the show. There were so many lovely things that it wasn't hard to do.

This card started life as a 7" x 7" Kraft card blank. I cut a black mat and then a brown mat. I embossed the brown mat with the Hexagon Haven A4 embossing folder by Sue Wilson. Once embossed I inked the brown mat with Black Soot Distress ink to emphasis the pattern. I cut a smaller white mat and I embossed this with the Rope Frame Mask and then inked it with a brown distress ink. I used the Spellbinders Fleur De Lis Squares die to cut and emboss the blue mat.

The bottle was fun. I used heat resistant acetate for the first time. The stamp I used was the "Ship in a bottle" so I had to work out how to get the bottle without the ship. I stamped the whole stamp onto the sticky part of a post-it-note. Then I cut out the ship making sure it had some of the sticky on it I used jet black Archival ink to stamp the I covered the ship with the post-it-note ship and then stamped onto the acetate. I heat embossed it with Cosmic Shimmer fine detail embossing powder. This was a bit of an experiment for me so I din't take photos this time when I do this again (which I will) I will take photos. I also stamped the bottle in the same way onto some white card I heat embossed that too.

I cut out the acetate bottle leaving a flap down each side of the main part of the bottle. I added some colour to the white bottle with Promarkers. The I cut some double sided sticky sheet to fit the lower portion of the white bottle and I covered this with small green beads to look like a liquid. I used some very strong tape to attach the flaps of the acetate bottle to the back of the white bottle. To my surprise the bottle has a curve to it.

The sentiment was from the Lovely Labels collection by Sam Poole. The label I cut with a die and I inked round the edge then I wrote on the label just like in Alice in Wonderland. I tied the label to the bottle with string burlap. Everything was stuck together with a very strong glue.

I thought you might like to see the state the dining room gets into when I craft. This is what it looked like when I was making this card. My family is very tolerant.

I also though you might like to see my stash from the craft show in Portsmouth. It was fun and they are coming back in February.

Thanks for stopping by and for any comments you may leave I appreciate each one.

Saturday, 28 June 2014

I hope you are having a great weekend. The weather today seems a bit iffy - oh well there is lots of crafting to be done.

Today's card was made with a LOTV image from one of their packs this one was bunny themed. I do like their illustrations they are so cute.

I started with a 7" x 7" Kraft card blank. You can see from the picture the mats that I cut. The mauve mat was inked and the white mat was embossed with the A4 Quilted Flower embossing folder by Sue Wilson. Once this was embossed I inked the edges with a brown distress ink the same as I used on the insert.

I cut the frame from the Tonic Studios Deco Frame Rose Die Set out of white card that I then it lightly inked with pink and green distress ink. The sentiment was cut from a Britannia Die from dark mauve card ( I know it looks black in the photo.

For the insert I cut a square of pearlised paper and rounded the corners with a punch I inked round the edges and then stamped the LOTV image with brown distress ink. I like to make the inserts nice as well.

The whole thing is nice and flat to send through the post though being the size it is it would still need a large letter stamp.

Tuesday, 24 June 2014

My daughter asked me to make this for a work colleague who was called away to visit her sick grandad who unfortunately died. I wanted to keep the card simple as this seemed more fitting. To start with I drew a simple sketch I use this as a way to cement all the ideas that are whizzing round my head.

I wanted to try a silhouette idea but I didn't want it to be black and then I spotted the teal pearlised card in my stash and I was away.The card blank I choose was black and measured 7" x 7". I cut a pale turquoise mat and then a smaller black mat. I took some white pearled card and cut it to size and then inked the edges with a dark blue distress ink. Then it was very exciting because I was able to use the Sue Wilson A4 embossing folder Illusion on the mat I had just inked. It is exciting because I haven't had my grand Caliber very long and ding A4 embossing is still a novelty to me. I am lucky enough to have some of the Sue Wilson Italian collection cutting dies and I used one from the frame set to cut out some turquoise card. I used a tonic circle die to cut a very thin mat. This way the little hearts stood out (I kept the little hearts that came form the waste and they came in very useful).I used a smaller tonic circle die to cut some more white card that was them embossed with a smaller embossing folder. I cut the Spellbinder flower box die and the sentiment out of the teal card that started this journey. Once everything was assembled I took some flat backed pearls and coloured them with Promarkers before sticking them with some stronger glue in the corners.

This is the card I made for my husband for Father's day with Sam Poole's stamps especially the Lighthouse one.

The eagle eyed among you might recognise the layout of the card being one that I have used before for a challenge on Do-crafts.

The base of the card is a 7" x 7" card blank. The first layer was stamped with Perfect Medium using the Netting stamp I then heat embossed this with a Clear detail embossing powder. Once this was done I inked over it with a dark blue Distress ink creating a resist effect.

I took a piece of blue paper and embossed it with the Illusion embossing folder by Sue Wilson. Then this was inked to bring out the detail.

The lighthouse was stamped onto white card coloured with Promarkers and then cut out. I cut a white hexagon and stamped the light house onto the hexagon. When the cut out lighthouse is place on top the rays of light are there. I cut mats in blue for the hexagon. I stamped the Father's Day sentiment that come with the Ship in a Bottle stamp and heat embossed it with Clear Detail powder.

The flags where cut from off cuts and mounted onto blue card. Everything was stuck together with a very strong glue. The final touch was to add the burlap my husband liked this a lot.

This is one of my faux knots. We had quite a discussion as to whether it was a real knot or not - see how interesting our lives are.

Everything can be bought in Sam Poole's Shop here.

Have a good week. I hope we get some good weather. Thanks for stopping by.

Monday, 9 June 2014

I hope you have had a good week. This week’s project is dedicated to my Father-in-law who is a naval veteran of World War II. Last week hundreds of British D-Day veterans were in Arronmanches, Normandy for a series of events marking the 70th anniversary of the greatest military invasion in history. On Friday 6th June he was interviewed by Chris Evans for Radio 2. This will be the last reunion that he will attend as his sight is failing and travelling is becoming difficult. He has three sons, three gorgeous daughters-in-law (I’m biased) and seven grandchildren, we are all very proud of him. This September he will be 90 and we are planning something very special to celebrate.

As soon as I saw the Nautical Stamps that Sam Poole had designed I knew I had to do something special for Grandad. This page started life as white 12” x 12” piece of card. Blue and white is so nautical and blue is his favourite colour. To get the stripes even I used masking tape and I covered the whole sheet edge to edge to get the spacing right. Then I removed alternate stripes. I used a blue Distress Ink to ink all over the page. If you look carefully the inking has a bit of texture, this is residue from the masking tape. If you don’t want this, use an Anti Static bag all over the page before you put the masking tape down and this should prevent it from happening. I used the 'Netting Stamp' and 'Perfect Medium' to stamp randomly over the page and them I heat embossed it alternately with a 'White Detailed Embossing powder' and a 'Clear Detail Embossing powder'. To finish the whole thing off I inked around the edges with a dark blue Distress Ink.

I stamped all the nautical stamps ('Light house', 'Just for You', 'Ship in a Bottle' and the 'Lantern' along with the 'Father' sentiment) onto white card with Colbalt Blue Archival ink this was then heat embossed with a Cosmic Shimmer Embossing powder with a blue tinge. They were all cut out by hand except the Just for You where I used a Spellbinders die. I made frames for the photo, map and sentiment using my Spellbinder dies and using a plain rectangular die on the inside to create a frame. Finally I printed the word Grandad on the computer and I cut another Spellbinder die in a matching colour to mount it. The whole thing was stuck together with Cosmic Shimmer Dries Clear Glue.

When Sam showed this on Create and Craft, I’d put a note on the back to explain the page to her, she read it out for everyone to hear I was very touched by this. My plan is to put the page into a frame and give it to him on his birthday. He always loves the the cards I make for him, as he is loosing his sight I try to give them texture and shape.

I want to add to this post the card I made for my Mother-in-laws birthday as it features poppies it seemed appropriate.

For this I used a Sweet Poppy stencil with Distress ink. Then I covered it with Translucent Paste and finally with Microbeads. The Happy Birthday stamp is by Sam Poole and comes with a set of useful sentiments. The poppy die is a Spellbinders die.

Thank you for looking at my blog and for leaving any comments, I do appreciate them all.

Monday, 2 June 2014

I hope you have had a good week and that you have lots of Crafty makes planned for the weekend. I never seem to get as much time as I would like, such is life.

Today’s card uses one of my favourite products Gilding Flakes and the trick to using these successfully is to use the right type of glue such as Cosmic Shimmer Flake and Glitter PVA which once applied stays tacky until you apply the gilding flakes or the glitter. It is a fun technique that gives great results. This card got lots of wows when it was shown on Create and Craft and I’m sure it was the gilding flakes that caused this reaction.

I started with a black 7 x 7 card blank I cut a silver mat and a smaller black mat. Then I cut a piece of white card just larger than the Netting Mask. I inked the white card with Distress ink in blues and greens, the colours blend so well together when using this brand.

Once this was dry (it didn’t take long) I put the Netting Mask over the paper and applied the Flake and Glitter Glue with a piece of Cut and Dry Foam all over the mask and including the border. It's a little more tricky when creating a boarder as you can't tape the mask down at all - you need a steady hand to hold it in place .

As the glue stays tacky until you need it, I made sure I’d cleaned my mask thoroughly before the next stage. Best to also wipe off your hands as well to avoid guilded fingers. I put my Gilding Flakes in a large tub that I had dusted with an a static pad. Then I put flakes all over my paper and I rubbed it in a bit with my fingers to make sure all the glue was covered, the paper will look really messy now. I used a mild abrasive pad rubbed in circular motions to remove the excess flake which can go back in your tub to be used again, this will reveal the pattern of the mask and the border.

To get the rope effect with the Burlap I took a strand of each of the three colours in the pack and just twisted them together. Everything was stuck together with Comic Shimmer Clear PVA. Once I had stuck the black and the gilded mats together I wrapped the Burlap cord around them before attaching this to the base of the card. The finishing touch was to add a Vintage Bronze Button to the top of the tag.

Thank you for visiting my blog and for leaving any comments. I do appreciate them all.

Hugs Jackie

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